New Brunsz-wick

Howdy,

Well breeding birds are over, so I can now recuperate and get ready for the next trip/surveys - James Bay. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I just got back from a 3 day jaunt to New Brunswick to do some bird work. I had only been to New Brunswick once before this, and this was a long time ago (not in a galaxy far, far away...) - 10 years to be exact! So needless to say I was pretty excited when I was asked to do this. Heck with the chance of seeing some cool species, why not?!

So anyways, I flew in Friday afternoon, did surveys that evening, Saturday morning, and again Sunday morning. Our site was located roughly 80km east of Bathurst.

I should mention, that this is 'roughly' where the area I was....

Anywho, the area was pretty boreal, with lots of youngish stands of forest, primarily spruce and some aspen. Our first site yielded the most interesting species - Bicknell's Thrush, where a single bird was (still) on territory. I heard the bird sing a few times, but wasn't able to see it.

This site had Bicknell's Thrush. Elevation was close to 700m.

It was definitely an interesting place to bird - especially since I haven't spent alot of time there. I was pleasantly surprised to get things like Blackpoll Warbler, and most of the finches (WWCR, PUFI, PISI), while on the coast getting things like Northern Gannets, Black-legged Kittiwakes and Black Guillemots, and even a Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Gannets were pretty common in Chaleur Bay, likely close 120 were seen on Saturday afternoon.

Black Guillemot. We saw about 10-15 guillemots in total.

I was also able to take some non-birding pics (my sister will be happy with this...) while out and about.

My parents visited this same church WAY back in the day (it was a Wednesday...), which I thought was kind of neat, since it had survived the last ice age and all.

I was in the heart of Acadia.

I'll give a prize to whoever counts the # of Cormorants in here...

And who could forget the memorable experience of having 3(!!!!!) flat tires in <24 hours!!

Our 3rd flat started as a slow leak, so we were able to drive back to Bathurst (~80km from our work site), but as soon as we pulled into the garage she went completely flat. I guess in this case, if you didn't have bad luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all!

And, I almost forgot, here are 3 ebird checklists from the trip:
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S11156041
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S11152671
http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S11150883